John Eric Byers is a critically acclaimed artist who painstakingly hand-tools wood to create minimalist, geometrically inspired pieces that are minimal, emotional and modernly refined. A former student of Wendell Castle, John's work is guided by a purity in form, surface texture, repetition and respect for use of materials. As noted by Grace Glueck in the New York Times " The carved, patterned surfaces add considerable interest to his simplified forms, as does his exquisite attention to detail."

Heralded as a leading American artist working in wood, John's pieces are in the permanent collections at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington,D.C. His numerous awards include The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award and inclusion in the Smithsonian's Archives of American Arts.

Additional comments on his work:

"Like any master, Byers' hides his painstaking labor, and his finished work appears to have been accomplished easily..."

- Ursula Ilse Neuman / Museum of Arts and Design

"...his magnificent building blocks of design, the sphere and ellipse, circle, square, cylinder and rectangle. Straightforward and solid, in Byers' skillful hands they serve as large canvases on which he projects mesmerizing carved and painted patterns".

- Jeannine Falino / American Craft Magazine

"He marries a painters attention to surface with a craftsman's devotion...art that references history and modernism".

- Cate Mcquaid / Boston Globe

"Painstaking artisanal work, rigorous design, and that organic but highly refined and sophisticated sensibility that’s the hallmark of what we call DesignCraft. "